The lacklustre administration of the West Bengal government and myopic politics of the Trinamool Congress clubbed with a rising Bharatiya Janata Party (politically, not electorally) makes for an evil concoction. Hence, there was another communal riot in the state. This time the poison was spread across North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal including areas of Minakha, Deganga, Baduria, Swarupnagar, Haroa, Habra, and Basirhat, roughly engulfing about 10-12 constituencies.

The area is known for political violence with brute force often being used to eliminate opposition and for controlling the numerous fisheries that dot this belt. But communalism took root in the state after TMC gained prominence. In 2010, a Muslim mob went on a rampage in Devanga, the army had to be deployed to normalise the situation and fingers were pointed towards the local TMC MP Haji Nurul Islam.

Another rampage took place on the evening of June 3 in Baduria and continued through the night, reportedly carried out by a Muslim mob. The next day vandalism spread throughout the region. The MP of the area is TMC’s Idris Ali, who was also attacked. Significantly, Ali was once arrested in 2007 for organising riots in Kolkata. It all started with what makes for a perfect recipe for a riot in India. The rath procession and the festivals were going on and Eid had just gotten over. The atmosphere was aptly conducive.

Souvik Sarkar, a 17-year-old student of class 11 from Baduria, on Sunday, shared a derogatory image of the Kaaba on Facebook. A case was lodged and he was arrested on Monday morning when he was hiding in a field nearby.

Subsequently, a Facebook user put up a live video on Monday evening, which showed a huge crowd that had gathered outside the Baduria police station asking for capital punishment for Sarkar. According to locals, the police dispersed the crowd from outside the police station but soon after that, hundreds of “outsiders” attacked shops in the surrounding areas. It looked more like a controlled crowd in an organised political rally with the speaker warning people to not climb trees. There was a rumour that the mob was demanding Sharia justice for Sarkar.

There is no clarity as to what happened after that. On Tuesday evening, local media started reporting about West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s press conference where she alleged that Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi had called her about the communal unrest, speaking in a manner that was both threatening and insulting for the CM of a state. Incidentally, it was Banerjee herself who broke the news of religious tension in Baduria. But the local media continued focussing on the Banerjee-Tripathi war of statements and counter-statements, largely, circumventing the issue on hand. But gradually, the news of disturbances started coming out.

There is still no accurate idea about the scale of the violence but as per latest reports in Anandabazar Patrika and personal anecdotes, 15 police vehicles, a school, several temples and shops were destroyed by the mob. 20 cops, including the district’s Superintendent of Police and the Assistant Superintendent of Police, were injured. Of the eight others injured, three are said to be in a critical condition and one dead.

It has been reported that a resistance from the other side is building up, policemen are getting beaten up and troublemakers being snatched away from the police. Internet services have been stopped, schools and colleges closed, and Section 144 of  Criminal Procedure Code has been imposed. With the presence of the Border Security Force (called in from the nearby Bangladesh border) and paramilitary personnel, the situation is being brought under control.  Around 250-odd people have sought shelter in a refugee camp. The BJP, on the other hand, has staged blockades in various parts of the district affecting the railway services.

“I was out on field work in an area which falls under Baduria police station. A mob stopped my car and said I cannot go anywhere. I pleaded with them, showed my identity card, but they did not let me go. I got scared and was waiting inside the car when there was a sound of an explosion. I looked back and saw dark smoke at a distance. The mob started running towards that. I took the opportunity, and fled with my car immediately,” says KH, who did not want to be identified.  His neighbour was not so lucky as their car was damaged outside the Chandipur Fair, which is about 16 km from the Baduria police station.

The reality is that this politics of riot suits both the TMC and the BJP. Banerjee gets the opportunity to blame BJP for fanning communal tension and BJP, in turn, blames her for minority appeasement. However, Bengal, even till a decade back, presented a very different scenario. For instance, D Bhattacharya, who had worked in this same Baduria block a few years ago, wrote on his Facebook wall:

“I started my life in rural development by working in an NGO in Baduria block. I did observe the society out there in details from 2001-2003. I continued to visit the area even till 2009-10. I saw a lot of village politics, but never along communal lines. The NGO where I worked had 50-60 local staff from both the communities. It was difficult to distinguish between Hindus and Muslims. They were more Bengali than Hindu or Muslims. It is surprising to see polarisation along communal lines. It looks like a manufactured riot.”

After Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s strict counter-terrorism measures, Basirhat sub-division has become a breeding ground for Bangladeshi-Islamist hardliners, who have been crossing from the neighbouring state bringing their Wahabi ideology along with them, apart from Saudi-money to support private mosques.

It has indeed become difficult to differentiate between Hindus and Muslims in Bengal unless you hear their name or visit their homes.  However, the multiple incidences of communalism have changed the political landscape of Bengal. Riding high on minority votes in 2011 and in the hope of consolidating it further, Banerjee pandered to the rogue elements among the Muslim community such as Imam Noor-ur-Rehman Barkati. She announced sops like allowances for imams, making Urdu the second official language in districts where Muslims are more than 10 per cent of the population, banning Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen and shutting doors on Salman Rushdie.

With an ever-weakening Left and the Congress, BJP was ready to fill the vacuum, especially after the 2014 Modi wave. The party used the opportunity to brand Banerjee as a Muslim sympathiser (using sobriquets like Jihadi didi) and tried to consolidate Hindu votes. Electoral success has eluded the BJP till now but a change in the mindset of West Bengal Hindus can be observed.

For instance, I was watching the ICC Champions Trophy, India-Pakistan’s final match, a few days back at a friend’s house.  When the national anthem was about to start, one of them sarcastically remarked, “There are people these days who do not want to stand up for the national anthem.” He stood up when India’s national anthem started to play even in a private drawing room.  To me, this signals a growing success of the BJP’s nationalist politics.

Mamata Banerjee, a seasoned politician, of course, has understood the challenge. But surprisingly, to control the damage done the biggest mistake one could commit is to indulge these Hindutva forces. Of late, her party’s workers and even some leaders have participated in the sword-wielding Ram Navami processions that BJP organised in the state. Additionally, her party plays an active role in Durga puja, Chhat puja, Jagadhattri puja among others, to the extent of allegedly giving state aid. But all this is only helping BJP politically and TMC (in the short-term) electorally.

The fear is, with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Congress reduced to the margins, such cases of communal disturbance will only increase. Mamata Banerjee needs to understand that if her administration does not handle law and order strictly, it is only a matter of time before such politically-engineered riots create more mayhem and cause deaths of both Hindus and Muslims. This form of politics surely helps but at the cost of humanity. She must remember that one of India’s bloodiest riots in history was the 1946 Great Calcutta Killings. With a history of communal riots, it may only be a matter of time before all hell breaks loose in Bengal.

[opiniontag]